A Book in Action published by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House and edited by Gao Shiming, with the editorial and executive team from ICAST.

The book is divided into four volumes, systematically reviewing and organizing the thinking and practice of curating at China Academy of Art (CAA), and presenting an in-depth view of Chinese contemporary art in the past twenty years from a curatorial perspective.

The first volume, Post Bandung, compiles the cultural lineage of  CAA’s curatorial work, presenting how its curatorial research has established its own ideological coordinates and spiritual orientation amidst the discursive critique of global cultural politics.

The second volume, Sensing the Field, explores the methods and paths by which curating national exhibitions goes beyond the art of the ‘art world’, drawing on knowledge of reality gained in in fieldwork to achieve social consciousness and historical perception. The first and second volumes are combined into Perceiving Reality.

The third volume, Returning Possibilities to History, analyzes how CAA’s curatorial work has been involved in the historical discourse and image construction of Chinese contemporary art since the 1990s, and how it has contributed to the historical critique and ideological deconstruction of contemporary China in recent years.

The fourth volume, Future Media, demonstrates CAA’s ongoing interest in and radical experimentation with new media, new sites, and new sensibilities. The third and fourth volumes are combined Reconstructing the Contemporary.

Through more than a decade of practice and teaching, the curatorial program at CAA has trained hundreds of young curators, artists, and critics, and has slowly developed into a unique curatorial path. On this path, curatorial work can be roughly divided into three parts: using artwork to highlight issues and problems, constructing critical and creative production situations, and constructing art movements to promote social progress.